Monday, February 22, 2016

Can Hunting Save Your Marriage?

From hunting grounds to athletic fields to trading floors, men moving together in packs, and sometimes alone, are typically engaged in what anthropologists term "male status competition." And their levels of testosterone--the hallmark hormone of maleness--tend to rise accordingly.

But a new study explores the nurturing, familial side of men who engage in such primal activities, often to support, feed or bring honor to their families. It finds that that side, too, is expressed hormonally, when a man arrives home to his family bearing dinner (or perhaps a paycheck or a trophy).

Indeed, the higher a man's testosterone has risen in the course of his engagement in traditionally male activity, the more the "love hormone" oxytocin tends to surge upon his arrival home, researchers have found. The longer his workday, researchers also found, the higher his oxytocin levels when he returns to his family.